The Raisin Industry: A practical treatise on the raisin grapes, their history, culture and curingEisen, Gustavus A.
History
The Raisin Industry: A practical treatise on the raisin grapes, their history, culture and curing
Eisen, Gustavus A.
Raisins; Viticulture -- California
_The Stemmer and Grader._--This large machine is a California invention.
The principle on which it works is that the dry stems are separated by
revolving the raisins rapidly in a drum made of perforated galvanized
iron or of strong galvanized wire. After the stems are separated, the
raisins fall together on screens of wire with various size meshes,
through which the smaller berries are separated from the larger berries,
while the refuse and broken stems are blown away by a fan. The most
perfect stemmer and grader is the one on the Butler vineyard. The
raisins are first dumped into a hopper below the floor, and from there
they are run automatically on a belt to the top of the stemmer, where
they enter the drum. From the drum they fall on the separating screens,
which grade them in three grades, each one falling in a box of its own.
Somewhat similar stemmers are seen in all the large vineyards, all run
by steam and large enough to stem and grade from forty to sixty tons of
raisins a day. There is considerable difference as to the ingenuity with
which these stemmers are built, some requiring many more hands to run
them than others. The Butler stemmer requires, part of the time, only
one man for its successful running. The Forsyth stemmer stands under a
shed in the open air, apart from the packing-house, in order that the
dust may be freely carried away. The smaller vineyards have stemmers run
by hand, and have separate graders also run by hand, large enough to
stem and grade from five to eight tons of raisins per day.
[Illustration: Raisin Lever Press.]
_The Presses._--These are of two kinds, screw presses and lever presses.
The screw press is much preferable (at least until the lever press may
be perfected), as with it we can gauge the pressure given the raisins.
The only press of this kind is found on the Raisina vineyard of T. C.
White. The press that is generally adopted, and the one that is most
handy, is the lever press, which is so constructed that four boxes of
raisins can be kept in the press at one time, or until the last box or
part of a box is ready. By a pressure with the foot, the levers are
released and the boxes freed from the pressure. While this press is
exceedingly handy and quickly worked, the pressure cannot readily be
gauged, and the raisins are apt to be injured by too heavy pressure. But
it is likely that improvements will soon be made which will remedy this
defect.
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